Emotional Shut Down! But what about the children?

It's the consistent attacks on your emotional wellbeing that have the most impact on your long-term health. As you are trying to pick up the pieces to your life you get pushed back down continuously breaking bones and re-injuring yourself. When the attack is physical others come to help and check on your wellbeing. When it is emotional you are often told to get over it. Consistently, feeling as though your heart being ripped out your chest like some horror movie is not a healthy state to stay in.

In fact, your body releases hormones that trigger a response of fight or flight. These hormones will hold you still in your tracks or make you fight. The release of hormones increases a person's heart rate, blood pressure and breathing rate. Being in a consistent state of this impacts your physical wellbeing. The consistent state of fight or flight can cause fatigue, slow metabolism, poor immune response, and problem thinking. Overall, people do not feel generally well. Overall, the body is going through a lot physically and mentally.

While, many of us adults can manage these hits to our emotional and physical well-being children may, not be able to manage the impact on them. As a parent your children go through these challenges with you.

Children go through it with you, how does it impact them?

As life is hitting you with these emotional traumas, they are often hitting your children too. While they do not know the details, they know the emotions and changes in behaviors. As a young parent I worked two jobs caring for my children. As the boys were having many visits to the hospital due to breathing concerns. Stress from hospital visits and managing life concerns was overwhelming but to add a major trauma to the mix. I shut down.

At 25 yrs old working two jobs with three children some man decide it was his right to grab to fill his sexual desires. This was devastating to me. I would lay on the floor of my apartment and just stare in the air for hours. Internally, I was stuck in my head trying to fix the broken pieces. Externally my children lost their active and engaged mother. I shut down. Yes, they got dinner and baths. The interactions where just disconnected due to my numbness. Later, they asked what was going on with me that I was acting differently so I explained it to them. We all managed the trauma of this situation differently. One of my children never got over the trauma that took place at this period in our lives.

The man who made that decision, sent an apologize to me, but can you really apologize. I survive the attacks on me, but my children. The impact on them was much greater.

Five steps I took to ground myself and manage my pain

1. Connected to my breathe
2. Changed my environment
3. Seen a therapist
4. Talked to a friend
5. Made a list of things I need to accomplish and got moving.